This website is for all ethnographers
who are interested in the study of the northern Mandara mountains of N.
Cameroon and N.E. Nigeria which I call the northern Mandaras.

The inhabitants
are today referred to by English speaking scholars as montagnards, a French
word, which replaces the less acceptable term “hill dwellers”.

They exist
mainly through terrace farming, but many men also do seasonal work in
towns or cultivate beans along the southern shores of Lake Chad.

The Northern Montagnards section
informs on the history and life of the peoples and gives access to more data, presented by Mandaras Publishing -
web presentations of images and field notes, academic contributions for download and printed publications as well as CDs - on various aspects
of their environment, rituals and material lives.

The
site contains a substantial bibliography of the ethnographic, linguistic,
archaeological and geographical literature dealing with the peoples of the
northern Mandaras, their history and environments. The site also carries
a list of ethnic groups known to us so far. Each ethnonym listed is hyperlinked
to a separate page giving a brief description of the ethnic group it is
associated with. Please feel free to participate in the updating of the
site.